


this heaven-sent boy

by crownsandbirds



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Coping, Depression, Developing Relationship, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 07:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18406256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/pseuds/crownsandbirds
Summary: 'It goes like this: two stupid boys constantly holding each other, whenever pain gets too strong, whenever life is too much, selfishly keeping each other to themselves in pivotal moments of their existence where it would just be easier to let go.'Law and Luffy and what they owe each other and what they want.





	this heaven-sent boy

Law is the captain of a crew that pilots a submarine. He's used to waking up surrounded by thick walls, watching whales swim from behind the glass that makes up the windows of his bedroom, used to getting inside and barking at his first mate to submerge and take them away from the harsh, painful reality of sunlight. 

 

He's very sensitive to bright lights. Too much time inside a submarine and chronic insomnia will do that to you, and yet, when he meets Monkey D. Luffy, his eyes widen and he lifts the rim of his battered hat just a bit, just enough to somehow gather enough of his wits to comprehend what's happening. 

 

Law has never met anyone quite like him. 

 

Luffy is sunlight, but he's warm and he's soft in the way nothing else is. His eyes are big and kind and curious. He looks like a miracle and behaves like salvation, chin up and back straight as if the crown has already been bestowed upon his head. He sits as if every chair is his throne, legs spread and smile wide, and when he speaks his voice carries through the edge of the blue waves, swimming in the ocean he so loves to watch. 

 

He exists differently from other people. He means more. He's the sea and the sand. 

 

And maybe he can't  _ save _ Law, maybe he's thirteen years too late, and, besides, Luffy doesn't try to save people, he just  _ does _ \- but the way he holds Law close to his chest and lets him cry all his decades of misery and pain on his shoulder tastes closer to heaven than the wine and bread at church ever did. 

 

Law finds himself relishing more the warmth of sunlight on his skin.

 

\-  

 

When he saves him from the apocalyptic chaos that is Marineford, when he reaches out with his arms open wide, when he is asked,  _ who the hell are you _ , his mind goes blank. 

 

He looks at Luffy, immobilized and inhuman in his desperate, bloodied grief, and he can't remember anything other than the first word that comes to the back of his tongue, the first thing he remembers wanting to be, before he wanted to be  _ cured _ and _ free _ and  _ alone _ and  _ alive _ and _ dead, dead, just please let me go _ . 

 

He takes a deep breath. He lifts his chin.  _ Let me take care of him _ , he says.  _ I'm a doctor.  _

 

Before everything, before white marks on his skin, before he took his brother's name and his family's grief and all the hatred of a destroyed country, before he tattooed death on his knuckles and hearts on his back, before he learned claustrophobia and nightmares and insomnia, he was a doctor. 

 

He's a doctor. Let him take care of Luffy. Let him do something,  _ anything _ , for the boy that will save this world. Let him keep the future Pirate King, the dawn of the universe, in this cruel, merciless reality, let him press his surgeon hands to the bloody hollow in his young chest and force him to live with a scar and a failure and the ghost smile of a dead older brother against his cheek. 

 

Luffy lying on the biggest bed in the Polar Tang's infirmary. Luffy whimpering Ace's name in his fretful sleep. Luffy waking up to a damp pillow because he cried throughout his nightmares. 

 

Law wonders if Luffy has ever had nightmares before. He wonders if this is the first time in the history of the world that sunlight has ever been sliced through by darkness. 

 

He sticks to the bedside. He sits on the chair and puts on his gloves and does his duty, follows the Hippocratic oath he never officially took. 

 

His hands don't shake. His resolve doesn't falter. 

 

Saving Luffy's life teaches him a doctor's obsession for keeping people alive. 

 

When he wraps his arms around his grievous patient and holds him as he wails for a brother no longer there, he doesn't think about dying. There's not a single thought in his mind other than _life_ , _life,_ _let this boy live_. 

 

And perhaps this is the first miracle Luffy grants him, unconscious as it is, battered and desperate and broken in an infirmary bed. 

 

The first miracle. 

 

-

 

Law is a thief. He stole one hundred pirate hearts and delivered them in a wooden chest, still-beating - he doesn't kill, he doesn't murder, he steals people's lives and reshapes them into a disturbing mockery of existence.

 

He steals years. He steals luck. He snuck into a body pile and stole destroyed lifespans out of corpses and forced the world to accept his useless existence. 

 

He stole his brother's name back when he had hair down to his shoulders. 

 

"Tora-o", Luffy calls out, his loud, bright voice dragging the stupid nickname out as far as it'll go, as if Law's name could ever sound that endearing, as if Luffy is going to make it sound easy on the ears through sheer willpower alone.

 

Luffy is an airhead and has nothing on his mind other than songs and love and willpower, and Law wants to kiss him, wants to see how the nickname tastes on his tongue, if it tastes like the childhood stolen from him, if it tastes sweet like the ice-cream he never got to have on that afternoon thirteen years ago. 

 

-

 

Law wonders if Luffy resents him for keeping him alive when Ace is dead. 

 

Law never met Ace. He heard of him, and saw him, knew about him, mostly - he was handsome, with warm brown eyes and broad shoulders. He looked every inch like someone handmade by a God Law isn't sure he believes in, handmade to be loved.  

 

He looked like a guardian, like a prince made of fire, like an older brother clad in white armor saving the throne for his silly little brother. 

 

Or maybe Law is just biased in his knowledge, because he sees in Luffy's eyes a sadness that wasn't there before. A rough edge to his voice, a subtle sharp cut to his orders, a brand new desperation in the way he bounces in his tiptoes when he's excited. He watches Luffy as Luffy watches the ocean, and he sees in the corner of those pretty lips a nearly insane yearning for  _ something. _

 

_ Do you hate me,  _ Law wants to ask.  _ Do you resent the useless doctor that gave you a scar and forced you to stay here and forever look for something you won't ever get back?  _

 

Doctors don't ask if their patients want to live. Surgeon hands don't grant answers.  

 

Pirates are selfish. They take what they want. Law wants nothing other than stay at Luffy's side and kneel down at his feet and kiss the back of his hand when he conquers the oceans. 

 

"I'm sorry," he blurts out one day. 

 

Luffy is sitting cross-legged on the head of the Sunny. He tilts his head to the side, curious and lazy in his ignorance as to what he's receiving an apology for. 

 

Law doesn't find the words to explain. 

 

Luffy goes back to watching the ocean, but every now and then he steals a glance at Law. 

 

And perhaps this is the second miracle. A fragment of the volatile focus of someone who has the entire world as his dream. 

 

-

It's early morning. Law didn't sleep at all. You never know just how many hours there are in a night until you can't get yourself to sleep through a single one of them. 

 

He has been on deck ever since sunrise. 

 

Luffy bounces out of the kitchen with a plate of pancakes in his hands. With the door left wide open in the wake of his distracted carelessness, Law can smell the delicious scent of Sanji's cooking. 

 

And doesn't this describe everything about spending your days with Luffy? Distraction and carelessness leading to small, daily miracles. 

 

He nods. "Strawhat." 

 

"G' morning, Tora-o!" Luffy says. He sways lightly as his eyes take in the water before them. There it is, once more - that constant, borderline manic hunger. "How's the sea?"

 

Law smiles. He can't help himself. He can't ever help himself when it comes to his future pirate king. "As always."

 

Luffy laughs. Laughter comes as easy to him as breathing, and yet all the more precious to a doctor who saw him scream his throat bloody in cold waters after Marineford. "Let's get going, then!"

 

Law shouldn't, he really shouldn't, not when he has a ship himself and a crew waiting for him, but he's tired and slow in that brutally honest way that comes with poor sleep, and Luffy is beautiful and charming and pretty like a dream come true, and - 

 

"Aye, aye, my king," Law says, and it feels right, in a strange way. 

 

Luffy laughs louder, bone-deep and satisfied, on the perfect side of cocky. On his way to get more food from the kitchen, he places a hand on Law's shoulder for just a moment before slipping off again, ever volatile, fickle like the most interesting mystery. 

 

-

 

It goes like this: two stupid boys constantly holding each other, whenever pain gets too strong, whenever life is too much, selfishly keeping each other to themselves in pivotal moments of their existence where it would just be easier to let go. 

 

Pirates are selfish. 

 

For Luffy, it was Marineford. 

 

For Law, it's Dressrosa. That gorgeous mockery of a town, pink-tinted glasses, and polished toys and cruelty. 

 

He hasn't slept properly in two weeks. He loses track of time. His right arm hurts still, ghost pain well-fitting a phantom body that lost its way towards death. 

 

He feels impossibly sad. He feels like one of the corpses that pressed against his feverish skin when he ran away from Flevance. 

 

Luffy is  _ stubborn _ and refuses to let him go, and when Law isn't busy hating his guts with everything he has for not allowing him to  _ just fucking die already _ , he's falling more in love with him than he ever thought possible. 

 

Luffy spends the entire night holding him close. He's a steady, strong heartbeat, soft hair under Law's fingers, a thumb that gently wipes his tears away. Luffy can't do careful, not for the blessed, gorgeous life of him, but he can do  _ kind _ , and he's so kind it makes Law grit his teeth and clench his hands into fists. 

 

He's pretty, as beautiful in the sunlight as in the moonlight. He rests Law's head on his naked chest, rough scar dragging against Law's cheek, and says,  _ it's okay, Torao, I'm here, it's okay.  _

 

Sometimes he wishes Luffy would cut the tendons in his ankles and keep him forever, make him hurt on the outside as much as he does on the inside. Every day he wishes he could kiss him. 

 

Law takes one hour to get out of bed in the morning. Luffy doesn't rush him. He brings him tea in bed and tells Sanji - Luffy  _ asks _ less now than he did before, his words more easily wrapped around careless, soft orders, his crew so head over heels in love with him that they bend over backward to keep his smile on his face - to make light food that won't weigh on his stomach. 

 

Time passes strangely. The blinds are kept closed because the harsh sunlight hurts Law's broken mind. 

 

Luffy sings idly sometimes, as he gets dressed in the morning, as he bounces around his ship. He likes singing, Law has noticed, his voice bright, with a very particular East Blue lilt. 

 

_ This is payback _ , Law thinks as he forces himself to get out of bed, forces himself to remember the feeling of clinging to a boy who just wanted to run away, to remember he owes his king this much at least,  _ at the very least _ . 

 

-

 

When they kiss, Luffy smiles against his lips, impossible and perfect. 

 

The wind in the sails takes them closer to a future where things make sense and everything is worth it but, for now, this is all they want. 

 

Luffy tastes like seawater and hope. He tastes like love. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> tonight was one of those insomniac nights where i didn't get a single fucking minute of sleep so i have no damn idea if this works but either way have it


End file.
